They say a temporary and partial funding lapse for Homeland Security is an acceptable cost of fighting a president's unlawful overreach.
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A Harvard scientist has been accepting cash from the energy industry, namely the Koch brothers, in order to push junk science that claims to refute man-made climate change, reported The New York Times. This is the most recent case of Koch-purchased science, but it’s hardly the first.

In the past, the Koch brothers “have donated at least $67 million to organizations that blast out disinformation relating to climate change,” reported Addicting Info.

Below, in its entirety, is the documentary The Koch Brothers Exposed. The film sheds light on the Koch-money network and how it influences scientific studies on climate change.

...................................................................................................................................................................COMMENTS:* Republicans are never happier than when they are taking something away from the weak* Where-ever the fright wing has gained complete control, these fright wing ideologies are being resurrected from the garbage pail of history. Texas is now going to limit, (or remove) the right of major cities to protect their people from pollution and corporate malfeasance. Texas is also looking to reduce property taxes and replace the shortfall with sales tax.The Kansas governor has removed LGBT protections introduced by the previous governor (by executive order). And now the fright has found a new target, a new lie to take action against. Wake up people, the fright wing has long desired and planned for this. The Frightened States of America will not be pretty. It will not be prosperous.

* Why is this article called CONGRESS GOES AFTER INJURED WORKERS on the front page? It's the REPUBLICANS going after injured workers-- when will you STATE the TRUTH. The HEADLINE should read HEARTLESS REPUBLICANS GO AFTER INJURED WORKERS!

In the late 1990s, as he approached 50, my dad started to have a series of small strokes. Many of them went undiagnosed, until the summer of 2000, when he finally went to the hospital. He slowly stopped working after that until, finally, in the fall of 2004, he decided to apply for disability, which he collected until he died in November 2006.

If you hadn’t known my dad very well, you would have thought he was totally okay after his strokes. He didn’t seem “disabled” in the outdated, non-politically correct way we think of the term. But I, and my family, could tell in his shuffling gate, and the hesitating way he talked, that he wasn’t his old self. More important: He had spent the previous 20 years earning his living through manual labor, as a plumber, lifting heavy marble bathtubs and slithering through the short crawlspaces beneath houses. That was a job he couldn’t continue to do, and there weren’t any other jobs he could easily transition to. By the time he received his first disability check, he’d been diagnosed with lung cancer, anyway.

One of the first things this new Congress did when it opened for business last month was to attack Social Security Disability. I’m going to talk about why, and about why the program is stressed, further down. For now, it’s really important to keep one fact in mind: The vast majority of people who receive disability payments are people like my dad.

The problem with Social Security Disability begins with this: The program’s actuaries say it will run out of money next year, and that current recipients will receive about 20 percent less than they do now unless something is done.

Republicans are saying that the disability program is running out of money because it’s being abused, and they’re saying that using funds from the bigger Social Security retirement program to plug the hole is robbing Peter to pay Paul. “[M]y measure creates a point-of-order to prohibit any diversion of funds from the retirement program to the disability program,” Sam Johnson, the Texas Republican who sponsored a House rule to prevent the money shift, said. “But more than that, the rule seeks to encourage much-needed reform.”

People are awarded disability payments if they’re severely impaired or unable to perform their past work or any other type of substantial work. In that assessment, age, education, and work experience are taken into account. That’s where claims of fraud arise, because some of the decisions are judgment calls made by doctors and government officials. The disability program encompasses people with a vast range of experiences, from people who have problems that have always kept them from hanging onto a steady job to people who suffer from squishy-sounding things like chronic back pain. And sometimes, whether they are disabled depends on who is deciding.

Let’s be clear, the Social Security Disability program has increased a lot: It’s roughly doubled in the past 20 years. The total costs are about $260 billion a year, more than three times the cost of food stamps. But it’s still only about 8.9 million people, and payments were about 4 percent of the federal budget in 2013.

In a controversial article two years ago, NPR’s Chana Joffe-Walt highlighted the growth trend, and pinned it to several long-term changes in American society. To begin with, we have expanded our definition of “disability.” Second, the economy has changed in fundamental ways, so people without a ton of education who once earned their living through manual labor are having a tough time finding steady employment. Lastly, the passage of welfare reform in 1996 changed the way that welfare was funded, so states have a financial incentive to encourage all the people who apply for welfare but might qualify for disability to apply for the disability program, which is federally funded, instead.

I thought Joffe-Walt’s piece was fair, but, many of the responses to her article clarified the problem further. Even though the program has grown, the majority of applications are denied. Some of the increases in the number of children enrolled are caused by the rise in child poverty over the same period, which means more families qualify for help for their children. Demographic changes—aging baby boomers like my dad—also account for some of the rise. Also, the people Joffe-Walt profiled who were part of the industrial economy also worked jobs that have higher disability rates in general because the work is labor intensive.

Regardless, it’s wrong to think that the program has grown simply because controls have somehow become lax, and lazy people are scrambling for disability payments that keep them below the poverty line. One of the ideas explored in Joffe-Walt’s piece, that people with physical pain are unable to find sit-down jobs that would allow them to work without hurting their bodies, has transformed in the popular imagination to the idea that people are malingering, that they could find some kind of job but simply don’t want to, or that they’re enrolling in disability only because of the bad job market. But it’s more complicated than that, and unemployment rates are less important than other factors.

This idea that a program must be growing because fraud has increased is a common one—Republicans think the same thing about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the program once known as food stamps. Yet, it’s also true that need has grown. Americans are poorer. Americans are older. Americans who performed physical labor have broken their bodies working and are unable to find jobs they can do now, as was the case with my dad.

Looked at one way, my dad basically retired at a young age, in physical pain and near his death, using funds from the disability program instead of the retirement program, which he never would have been able to access because he died too young. So, concerns over where the money is coming from exactly are a bit beside the point.

I suppose, technically, my dad might have been able to find a job as a greeter at a Wal-Mart, or something else with low physical demands and that did not require a lot of skills. But those jobs weren’t open. Also, I think there’s a more philosophical question we should ask: why would we want to push aging people, in many cases, at the end of their lives, into new jobs that require new skills and probably pay poorly in the name of saving a few federal dollars? That’s a question for Republicans, because that will be the end result of their actions, if they get their way.
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...................................................................................................................................................................COMMENTS:* Hopefully this law will get tested when a literature teacher puts the Song of Solomon on the reading list--not the Morrison novel, the erotica from the Old Testament. * So let it be said. So let it be done. KANSAS is now officially Nazi Germany! we now only await the burning of the books. And lighting of the Gas Chambers and Crematorium by this madman and the state full of psychopaths who elected him. * Funny how the Right Wing screams about the evils of Sharia law, yet happily enacts its own versions.* Wowl This sounds a lot like The Crucible by Arthur Miller - but then he would probably be banned. This could get real ugly for Kansans who want their children to be educated. This is what happens when you elect religious zealots to local, state and federal legislatures. It looks like 10th century christianity. Barbaric!
...................................................................................................................................................................Kansas could put teachers in prison for assigning books prosecutors don’t like

A bill approved by the Kansas Senate on Wednesday would enable prosecutors to bring charges against teachers and school administrators for assigning or distributing materials judged harmful to students, the Kansas City Star reports.

The bill, proposed by conservative state Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook (R-Shawnee), deletes a provision in current state law that exempts schoolteachers and officials from such prosecutions. Senators passed the bill 26 to 14.

After introducing the bill earlier this month, Pilcher-Cook told the Topeka Capital-Journal that she did so in response to a poster displayed at a Shawnee Mission middle school in 2013. The poster posed the question, “How do people express their sexual feelings?” and listed such examples as oral sex, kissing, intercourse, and talking. Media outlets pounced on the controversy after some parents complained, and though the poster was part of a broader sex education curriculum that emphasized abstinence, the school suspended use of the material.

Pilcher-Cook and other supporters of her measure also say that it’s necessary to prevent the distribution of pornography in schools — a problem that has not hitherto arisen. The Star reports that earlier this week, state Rep. Joseph Scapa (R-Wichita) cited as pornographic a book by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison.

Testifying against the bill earlier this month, Kansas National Education Association general counsel David Schnauer called the legislation“a solution looking for a problem,” arguing that its real effect would not be to protect minors from harmful materials, but to undermine “legitimate educational programs and curriculum.”

The legislation now moves to the deeply conservative House of Representatives. GOP Gov. Sam Brownback hasn’t commented on the measure, but as a hardline social conservative, it would hardly be out of character for him to sign it.
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Friday, February 27, 2015

...................................................................................................................................................................COMMENTS:* It appears almost no one knows that since 1996, TANF has a 5 year lifetime limit on benefits, cut to 2 years in most red states, plus a 30 hour a week work or job training requirement. People who manage to work 30 hours a week or complete job training obviously don't have a drug problem that prevents them from getting work.People eligible for unemployment must have been working continuously at 40 hours a week, and have lost their job through no fault of their own. In other words, if they were fired for any cause, including for drug use, they're not eligible for unemployment. This should be one of the last groups anyone thinks it's worthwhile to test.This is all about planting the idea that any recipient of assistance must be a high school dropout drug user. Rightwingers don't care how much they have to spend to pound that idea into people's heads. It helps create support for slashing or eliminating these safety net programs. * Oh, there you go throwing out those pesky facts, logic, and rules of TANF. RWNJs couldn't care less who their policies hurt; they certainly couldn't care less about the actual regulations and logical points you've made. (Well said, by the way.) As you said, it's all about planting the idea that only people who need assistance have somehow failed at life and therefore don't deserve assistance.* It's not just about the ineffectiveness of these programs, it's also about the fact that someone is profiting from conducting these tests. Yes, a state government may be SPENDING several thousand (or hundred thousand) dollars on these programs, but someone is RECEIVING those funds for the testing they're doing. I wonder who those somebodies are?
...................................................................................................................................................................What 7 States Discovered After Spending More Than $1 Million Drug Testing Welfare Recipients
By Bryce Covert & Josh Israel, February 26, 2015

As state legislatures convene across the country, proposals keep cropping up to drug test applicants to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, or welfare. Bills have been introduced so far in Montana, Texas, and West Virginia, with a handful of others also considering such a move. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has gone further, proposing to drug test applicants for food stamps and unemployment benefits. They follow recent bills put into action in Maine, Michigan, and Mississippi.

Proponents of these bills claim they will save money by getting drug users off the dole and thus reduce spending on benefits. But states that are looking at bills of their own may want to consider the fact that the drug testing programs that are already up and running haven’t seen such results.

According to state data gathered by ThinkProgress, the seven states with existing programs — Arizona, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah — are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to ferret out very few drug users. The statistics show that applicants actually test positive at a lower rate than the drug use of the general population. The national drug use rate is 9.4 percent. In these states, however, the rate of positive drug tests to total welfare applicants ranges from 0.002 percent to 8.3 percent, but all except one have a rate below 1 percent. Meanwhile, they’ve collectively spent nearly $1 million on the effort, and millions more may have to be spent in coming years.

Does Drug Testing Welfare Applicants Work?Lawmakers who push these bills claim that they will cut down on costs by rooting out drug abusers while also helping to refer those users to treatment. But in reality, they come with few, if any, benefits.

“The main impact of it is first…to spend TANF money that could go into other things,” said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, policy coordinator and director of income and work supports at CLASP, a non-profit focused on policy for low-income individuals. While many states told ThinkProgress that the funds don’t necessarily come out of the pot that would go to TANF benefits, it’s still money that could go elsewhere. “The money could certainly be spent on other things if it wasn’t going to drug testing,” she said. “Even if it’s a state where it can’t go to into childcare or cash assistance, it probably comes out of their administration pot, so that’s caseworkers and things like that.”

The other impact is increasing stigma around both welfare and drug use. It can increase the shame people feel around applying for welfare benefits in the first place, which could drive them away from getting assistance they may need to get by. At the same time, it may make drug users less willing to disclose and therefore keep them from connecting with treatment, according to Lower-Basch. “If people are afraid they’ll lose their benefits if they admit to using drugs, it makes it hard for them to say, ‘Hey, actually I have this issue,'” she explained. A study of Florida’s program, which has since been struck down by the courts, found that it didn’t produce any reliable estimates of drug use among welfare recipients.

Even if the policies did unearth drug users in need of help, however, that doesn’t mean states are going to get it to them. Many “don’t guarantee your slot [in treatment facilities] or in some cases pay for it,” she noted. Centers often have long waiting lists, so someone who gets referred may not even be able to get in. Some states used to use TANF money to expand access to drug treatment, but as the money allocated to the program has dropped in real value, those efforts have dried up.

There is one way Lower-Basch thinks drug testing welfare recipients used to be helpful: not to determine eligibility for benefits, but to help them get work. “It was part of the work assessment,” she explained, “what are your barriers to work, what do you need in order to get a job.” If it was a barrier to employment, states could try to help them get what they needed to overcome it.

The High Costs And Few Rewards In Each StateThe drug-testing regimes in the seven states all differ slightly, but the lack of effectiveness is widespread.

In 2011, Missouri adopted a law to require screening and testing for all TANF applicants, and the testing began in March 2013. In 2014, 446 of the state’s 38,970 applicants were tested. Just 48 tested positive.

The budgeted cost for that year’s testing program was $336,297. And, according to numbers provided to ThinkProgress by a Missouri Department of Social Services spokeswoman, the first three years of the program will likely cost the state more than $1.35 million, including start-up costs.

Oklahoma passed its law in 2012, requiring a screening of all applicants and chemical tests for those for whom there is a “reasonable cause” to believe they are using illegal substances. From November 2012 through November 2014, 3,342 applicants were screened and 2,992 selected for further testing (though those numbers could include some who applied more than once). Two-hundred and ninety-seven tested positive for illegal substances.

A spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services told ThinkProgress that, not counting personnel and system costs, the state paid $185,219 for the 2013-2014 year for this program, which came out of its TANF and Medicaid budgets.

Utah also enacted its law in 2012, requiring a written screening and a drug test for anyone with a “reasonable likelihood” of having a “substance use disorder.” Between its implementation in August 2012 and July of 2014, 9,552 applicants were screened and 838 were given drug tests. Just 29 tested positive at a cost of more than $64,000, according to a Utah Department of Workforce Services spokesman.

Kansas enacted its drug screening law in 2013, requiring that from 2014 onward, all TANF applicants be tested if a “reasonable suspicion exists” that they might be illegally using “a controlled substance or controlled substance analog.” In the first six months in which the system was in place, Kansas received 2,783 TANF applications.

A spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Children and Families told ThinkProgress, “The first three months of implementation yielded very few drug tests, as staff became comfortable with the criteria. Referrals have increased since that time. So far, 65 individuals have been referred for suspicion-based drug testing. 11 tested positive [and] 12 failed to appear for their scheduled test appointment.” She estimated that the cost to the department over those six months was about $40,000.

Last year, Mississippi passed a law requiring all TANF applicants to complete a written questionnaire about drug use and mandating testing for anyone whose questionnaire suggests a “reasonable likelihood” of a “substance use disorder.” The new system went into effect in August 2014.

Over the first five months, 3,656 TANF applicants were screened for use of illegal substances and 38 were referred for drug testing. Just two tested positive.

A Mississippi Department of Human Services spokeswoman told ThinkProgress that the agency “has contracts in place for the screening (SASSI) and any subsequent tests (MedScreens). The cost per SASSI is less than $2.00 per screening. If referred for a drug test the cost per test is $43.00.”

A 2012 Tennessee law was particularly descriptive about its reasoning for TANF drug testing. After observing that “persons who are not under the pernicious influence of illegal drugs [are] less disruptive of the social fabric, persons and neighborhoods around them are safer as well,” that ” tax dollars should go to persons who are trying to better themselves rather than to persons who violate our state and national laws and support a network of illicit purveyors of misery and disappointment,” and that “the public image of TANF recipients will be enhanced by removing the stigma that is too often attached to such recipients that they use government funds to purchase illegal drugs,” the legislature mandated “suspicion-based drug testing for each applicant” otherwise eligible for TANF.

The program went into effect in July 2014 and, between that time and the end of the year, 16,017 applied for Families First, Tennessee’s TANF program. Of those, 279 were given drug tests and 37 failed then. Those tests cost the state $5,295.

In a statement, the Tennessee Department of Human Services told ThinkProgress, “The department is currently in a state of implementing and evaluating the Families First (TANF) drug testing program. The program is still very new. We plan to review comprehensively at the end of first full fiscal year.”

In 2009, Arizona’s legislature passed a new requirement to “screen and test each adult recipient who is otherwise eligible for temporary assistance for needy families cash benefits and who the department has reasonable cause to believe engages in the illegal use of controlled substances.” Anyone who tested positive would be ineligible to receive the benefits for a year. Supporters claimed this move would save the state $1.7 million annually.

While the legislature has kept the rule each year since its 2010 implementation, very few people have actually even been referred for drug testing after completing a written drug use statement. Since 2014, more than 140,000 Arizona TANF recipients have been screened by the Arizona Department of Economic Security. Just 42 have been referred for a drug test over that time — of the 19 who completed the test, only three have ever tested positive. An Arizona Department of Economic Security spokeswoman told ThinkProgress those 19 drug tests cost the department $499.06.

The Future

In addition to the seven states with active testing laws, several others have laws that are on hold or still being implemented (and more states are considering similar measures).

In 2011, Florida passed a law to require every single applicant for TANF to pass a urine drug test, at his or her own expense (not just those for whom there was a reasonable suspicion). In four month of implementation,108 out of 4,086 applicants tested positive at a cost of $118,140. Applicants who tested negative would be reimbursed by the state. A federal court stopped the requirement as a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s “unreasonable search and seizures” clause in 2013 — a ruling upheld in December by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The three-judge panel noted that Florida had “not demonstrated a more prevalent, unique or different drug problem among TANF applicants than in the general population.” A 2012 Georgia law like Florida’s, was revised in 2014 to include a “reasonable suspicion” requirement. A spokeswoman for the Georgia Division of Family and Children’s Services told ThinkProgress that the program is “currently on hold, pending a case in the U.S. District Court.” Its ultimate result could determine the constitutionality of the requirements in other states.

Other states are moving ahead with implementing programs for screening and drug testing based on “reasonable suspicion.”Maine is awaiting a contract with a testing service, North Carolina is working to implement its system, and Alabama’s testing is scheduled to begin in October. A pilot program in three or more counties in Michigan will also soon begin.

And given the similarity of these new programs to the drug-testing regimes now in place, it’s hard to see how they will get any closer to advancing the goal of welfare to “help needy families achieve self-sufficiency.”
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...................................................................................................................................................................COMMENTS:* Isn't a time out for third graders? * Yes, it is a punishment for third graders. It also should be a punishment for the Republicans, who are behaving very badly by embarrassing our country once again in the eyes of the world and by putting all Americans at risk. The Republicans seem to think governing our country is a game of chicken. They are acting more like testosterone-fueled adolescent males than they are responsible elected officials.* The same logic applies to House Republicans spending so much time trying to get a healthcare bill ("Obamacare") which addressed a problem - without proposing a better, or at least, different solution themselves. It's the GOP way!
...................................................................................................................................................................Opinion: After this tantrum, House Republicans need a timeout
By Scott Martelle, February 27, 2015

I’m trying to understand the logic here.

Conservative congressional Republicans who have refused to work on comprehensive immigration reform are upset because President Obama invoked prosecutorial discretion and prioritized which immigrants here illegally should be targeted for removal. Obama also set up a system under which parents of American citizens or legal permanent residents, and an expanded pool of people brought here as children, would be able to live without immediate fear of deportation, and in some cases get permission to work (now on hold pending a legal challenge).

Immigration and border security are overseen by divisions of the Department of Homeland Security, notably Customs and Border Protection and Citizenship and Immigration Services, as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Instead of addressing the root problem -- inadequate immigration laws -- the House conservatives decided that they would not fund Homeland Security unless they were also allowed to gut Obama’s ability to grant deferred action.

That bill passed the House but couldn’t get through the Senate. And even if it had, Obama pledged to veto it. So the Senate did the smart thing: It split the two measures and passed a continuing funding bill for Homeland Security so that senators could tackle separately the more contentious rollback of deferred actions.

The House Republicans, behaving like toddlers throwing a tantrum, refused to break the two measures apart, and are poised to force Homeland Security to furlough tens of thousands of workers, while requiring essential personnel to work without pay (though they probably will get paid later).

So because they don’t like how Obama is trying to deal with the 11 million immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, let alone how border security is conducted, the House Republicans are hamstringing the very department responsible for doing the work they think is so crucial to the nation.

...................................................................................................................................................................COMMENTS:* Gods of poverty- hard at work for their owners(read Koch bros) trying to keep the poor uneducated and pregnant. Please people vote this next election* Teenagers have been having sex for mellennia. Abortion may not be palatable to many people, but it is better than a 15 year old girl who is denied birth control, with raging hormones, trying to raise a child who will probably be born into poverty, thereby keeping the cycle going generation to generation. The GOP is clueless.* Once again the GOP allows its right wing to influence laws and to insert something that gives their evangelicals and religious base a morsel that tells this base that they are doing its will. The only real problem with this kind of legislation is that it either will not be taken up by the Senate or will be filibustered in the Senate and/or will be vetoed by the President and so our time and money has been wasted again. This action will again make the probability of a member of their Party getting elected President more remote.
...................................................................................................................................................................House Republicans Slip Anti-Abortion Language Into Education Bill
By Laura Bassett, February 26, 2015

House Republicans attached language to a major education bill Wednesday night that would financially penalize school districts that allow school-based health centers to provide information about abortion to pregnant high school students.

The amendment to the Student Success Act, a GOP overhaul of No Child Left Behind, would withhold federal funding from school districts that contract with health centers unless the center certifies that it will not provide abortions or give students any information about abortion, including directions to the nearest abortion provider. (School-based health centers already do not provide abortion services.)

The House Rules Committee slipped the new language into a part of the bill known as the "manager's amendment," which is normally reserved for non-controversial fixes to a piece of legislation that are agreed to ahead of time.

"This amendment is a cowardly attack on young people's access to the full range of information about their reproductive health care," said Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. "This provision ties the hands of health care professionals in schools, and would deny teens access to important and basic information about their health care options."

"Once again, abortion opponents in the House went after women's health under the dark of night," Richards continued. "And because they know this attack on abortion is deeply unpopular, [they] won't take an actual vote on it."

Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas), who authored the amendment, did not respond to a request for comment.

Republicans also tried to attach an anti-birth control amendment to the bill, but it was ruled out of order, or irrelevant to the main legislation. That amendment, authored by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), would have prohibited federal funds to any school that provides emergency contraception, or a prescription for it, on the premises of a high school or elementary school. The "morning-after pill" is an example of such contraception.

The House is expected to vote on the education bill Friday. The bill would strip the federal government of much of its current power to lift up struggling schools in low-income districts, instead giving the states the authority to make such decisions.

The White House has said President Barack Obama will veto the bill if it passes, arguing that it "abdicates the historic federal role in elementary and secondary education of ensuring the educational progress of all of America's students, including students from low-income families, students with disabilities, English learners, and students of color."
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Jon Stewart is definitely using his remaining days at The Daily Show in the best possible way.
He's been tearing it up with his monologues in the past few weeks. First, he put Mike Huckabee in his place. Then, he masterfully attacked Alabama and Kansas for their homophobic behavior. Now he's single-handedly taking on Fox News and their lies. Oh, and it only takes him six seconds.

The challenge began after news of Stewart's departure from The Daily Show led Fox News to make some pretty harsh comments against the host, calling him "a little nasty" and "not a force for good." Some Fox commentators even went so far as to accuse Stewart of bending the truth for the sake of humor.

Stewart did not brush these comments off.

Instead, he challenged Fox News to a lie-off, but not before he put them in their place, pointing out that The Daily Show has someone on staff who "uses every fiber of his being" to ensure facts are reported correctly.

When accused of "poisoning the brand" of Republicans and conservatives at Fox News and beyond, Stewart showed some super-unflattering clips of Rush Limbaugh before asking, "How do you poison a cyanide factory?"

He further accuses the network of being more concerned with "discrediting anything that they believe harms their side" rather than with actually searching for truth. And to prove that they're the ones who are actually lying, Stewart presents 50 Fox News lies... in only six seconds, thanks to a brilliant Vine.

This just might be Jon Stewart's best dis yet.

More than sadness over not seeing Jon Stewart's goofy face every day when he's gone, this report just makes me nervous for the future of satirical news. After all, who will call out the political liars of this world once Stewart has left? I need his epicness in my life. Because it may be humor, but it's also truth delivered in the best possible way.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

...................................................................................................................................................................COMMENTS:* "House in limbo" Hmmm, is that not code for House has no clue how to govern? House is dumb as a box or rocks? Hmmmmm, I do believe that to be correct.* Good to see the Party of No be told No. Makes me smile to see them squirming in pain. Hey Boehner and McConnell, Grow up.* To those who are screaming "Shut it Down," you do realize that it doesn't actually shut down, right?* I hope the GOP enjoys their 2-year Senate majority. And the fact that they're going to lose the WH again in 2016. The far-right mental inferiors of the House are doing a great job of tanking things on their own, even for those with no greater association with them but their shared GOP label, and no help whatsoever is needed from outside. None.
...................................................................................................................................................................House GOP weighs new approach on Homeland Security
By David Espo and Erica Werner, February 26, 2015

Sounding retreat, House Republicans agreed Thursday to push short-term funding to prevent a partial shutdown at the Homeland Security Department while leaving in place Obama administration immigration policies they have vowed to repeal.

"The speaker's pretty adamant that he's not going to shut down Homeland Security, especially in light of the Mall of America and in light of what's happened in New York," said Rep. Dennis Ross., R-Fla., emerging from a closed-door strategy session with the Republican rank-and-file.

He referred to a suggestion made by one terrorist group that a sympathizer should attack the Mall of America, an enormous shopping facility in Minnesota, as well as the arrests Wednesday in Brooklyn of men charged with plotting to help Islamic State fighters.

Ross and other Republicans said legislation to fund DHS for three weeks would be put to a vote in the House on Friday.

Senate Democratic officials indicated they would agree to the measure, and predicted President Barack Obama would sign the measure, averting a partial shutdown of an agency with major anti-terrorism responsibilities.

Outlining a second step in a revised strategy, Ross said House Republicans would also seek negotiations on a separate spending bill on track for Senate passage on Friday. It would fund the agency through the Sept. 30 end of the budget year while also rolling back Obama's immigration directives.

Senate rules require 60 votes to initiate formal compromise talks between the houses on any bill, and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said in advance his party would use its strength to prevent that from happening in the current clash.

Anticipating that, some Republicans made the case inside the strategy session for simply conceding defeat and agreeing to a longer-term funding bill without conditions, according to officials who attended the session.

In addition, Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., and a former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, told reporters that lawmakers should think of the consequences "if a bomb goes off in their district." To consider shuttering the agency "is wrong politically, morally and governmentally. Politically it's going to kill us. Morally, you're equating an immigration order with the lives of American citizens," he said.

Without legislation signed into law by the weekend, an estimated 30,000 Homeland Security employees would be furloughed beginning Monday. Tens of thousands more would be expected to work without pay. Many Republicans have said they fear they would pay a political price for even a partial shutdown at the department, which has major responsibilities for anti-terrorism.

The proposal under consideration by House Republicans marked a retreat from their longstanding insistence that no money be approved for Homeland Security as long as Obama's immigration directives remained in place. Yet it followed by a few days an announcement by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he was moving to uncouple the two issues.

Whatever the eventual outcome, it appeared Obama was closing in on a triumph in his latest showdown with the Republican-controlled Congress. GOP leaders announced last fall they would attempt to force a rollback in his immigration policy by tying the issue to funds at Homeland Security, a trade-off he has adamantly opposed since it was first broached.

With directives issued in 2012 and late last year, Obama largely eliminated the threat of deportation for more than 4 million immigrants who entered the country illegally, including some brought to the United States as youngsters by their parents.

Republicans say the president is acting unconstitutionally, and a federal judge in Texas recently issued an order that temporarily blocked the administration from carrying out Obama's 2014 policy.

The White House has appealed that ruling, and Obama, expressing confidence he will prevail, said Wednesday he would take the case to the Supreme Court if necessary.

At a news conference earlier Thursday, John Boehner offered no hint of a change in GOP strategy, repeatedly turning aside questions on the subject.

"When I make decisions, I'll let you know," he said when asked what the House's reaction would be if the Senate approved a no-strings bill to keep DHS in operation.

At his news conference, Boehner betrayed no concern that rebellious conservatives might try to topple him from power if he didn't hold firm in demanding the White House cede ground on immigration.

"No, heaven's sakes no. Not at all," he said.

Although loath to provide information, Boehner betrayed no tension over his latest legislative struggle.

Fending off one question, he puckered his lips as if to send kisses in the direction of a reporter who asked what his plan was.
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...................................................................................................................................................................COMMENTS:* Inhofe is walking talking hoax * That's "a well bribed politically corrupt walking talking hoax."* I never can figure out if Republicans are really this dumb or just intentionally acting dumb. In any case the voters better wise up before all our desendants have to tread water for most of their lives.*Well....that certainly refutes science, doesn't it! * That darn science! I guess they don't have it in Oklahoma, the Senator's home state.
...................................................................................................................................................................Jim Inhofe Brings A Snowball To The Senate Floor To Prove Climate Change Is A 'Hoax'
By Kate Sheppard, February 26, 2015

The Senate's most vocal critic of the scientific consensus on climate change, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, tossed a snowball on the Senate floor Thursday as part of his case for why global warming is a hoax.

Inhofe, who wrote the book The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, took to the floor to decry the "hysteria on global warming."

"In case we have forgotten, because we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, I ask the chair, 'You know what this is?'" he said, holding up a snowball. "It's a snowball, from outside here. So it's very, very cold out. Very unseasonable."

"Catch this," he said to the presiding officer, tossing the blob of snow.

Inhofe went on to list the recent cold temperatures across parts of the United States, which included 67 new record lows earlier this week according to the National Weather Service, as evidence that global warming claims are overhyped. "We hear the perpetual headline that 2014 has been the warmest year on record. But now the script has flipped."

Despite the record lows in some parts of the country, the nation overall has been experiencing a warmer than average winter.

...................................................................................................................................................................COMMENTS:* Considering how often Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the like accuse Jon Stewart of lying, you would think they would come up with an example.* The Republicans will not be happy until, like a science fiction film, every one has a micro-chip implanted so they can be traced and their every thought recorded with non-authorized thoughts immediately flagged so the "police" can detain them for political re-education camps or elimination.* With Jon going away the republican circus act will run rampant unchecked. Who's gonna expose their utter stupidity & lack of intelligent thinking?
...................................................................................................................................................................Jon Stewart On Why He’s Leaving ‘Daily Show': Conservatives “Killing Me”
By Lisa de Moraes, February 26, 2015

Jon Stewart finally explained at length why he is leaving The Daily Show.

He started by showing clips of reaction to his announcement from the right — mostly Fox News Channel, where Megyn Kelly is seen talking about how “nasty” Stewart got, with “no foothold in the facts.”

He challenged FNC to a Lie Off. “Your distortions and lack of fact foothold against mine.”

He presented a clip he called 50 Fox News Channel distortions and lies in a 6-second Vine and invited viewers to go to his show’s website to peruse more at their leisure.

Then he turned to Rush Limbaugh having said he, Stewart, has “poisoned the Republican brand.” “How do you poison a cyanide factory?” Stewart pondered.

“In their mind the opposite of bad isn’t good — the opposite of bad is conservative,” Stewart cautioned, telling viewers to stop pretending that any concessions to the right will sate the beast.

“Take it from someone who’s been watching what they do for a blessedly almost over 16 years or so. Their chronically angry war for ideological purity, where every aspect of live becomes a two-dimensional battle for America’s soul — it ages you. Even watching it is killing me.”
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...................................................................................................................................................................The Symbolic Politics of Keystone XL
By John Cassidy, February 25, 2015

Yesterday, as expected, President Obama vetoed a Republican bill approving construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The G.O.P. leadership on Capitol Hill has said that it will try to get enough votes to override the veto.

At this stage, it doesn’t look like they will be able to assemble the necessary majorities of two-thirds in both chambers, but that doesn’t mean the Keystone XL issue is going away. It has been dragging on for seven years now, since the project was first proposed. Over time, it has evolved into something more than a dispute about a buried thirty-six-inch-wide pipe that would stretch eight hundred and seventy-five miles from Hardisty, Alberta, to Steele City, Nebraska. On both sides, Keystone XL has turned into a symbolic battle that connotes a larger struggle over political mobilization and, ultimately, political power.

With opinion polls tending to show that most Americans favor construction of the pipeline, the Keystone issue provides the Republicans, who now control both houses of Congress, with a convenient and relatively popular issue that they can use to rally the troops, confront the President, and exercise their newfound authority. The G.O.P. leadership knows that it’s unlikely to persuade enough Democratic lawmakers to support an override of Obama’s veto, but it is eager to lay down a marker for upcoming battles over health care, taxes and spending, immigration, war powers, and many other issues. “The President’s veto of the Keystone jobs bill is a national embarrassment,” said Speaker John Boehner in a video clip posted on his Facebook page. “The President is … too invested in left-fringe politics to do what Presidents are called on to do, and that’s put the national interest first.” Clearly, the Republicans think they have a winner. “The Keystone pipeline is a no brainer,” Jeb Bush posted on his Facebook page shortly before the veto came down. “President Obama must stop playing politics & sign the bill.”

To environmental activists, preventing construction of Keystone XL has turned into a test case of whether they can overcome opposition, not only from the G.O.P. but from elements of the Democratic Party, in order to block a big energy project. Victory, in the form of a final decision from Obama rejecting the project, wouldn’t have much immediate impact on carbon emissions, or on climate change. But it would provide the movement with a rallying point in its larger struggle to keep oil, gas, and coal reserves buried in the ground. In welcoming the President’s veto, Bill McKibben, a former staff writer for this magazine who runs the climate movement 350.org, told the Times, “Hopefully the ongoing legislative charade has strengthened his commitment to do the right thing.”

The opposition to Keystone XL emerged during Obama’s first term. It was partly based on fears that the pipeline would lead to a big boost in carbon emissions, and partly based on worries about what its construction would do to environmentally sensitive areas along its route, including the Nebraska Sandhills and parts of the Ogallala Aquifer. But, as my colleague Ryan Lizza explained in an informative piece published in September, 2013, the national anti-Keystone movement also grew out of concerns that Obama wasn’t doing enough to confront climate change or the energy industry.

McKibben and Tom Steyer, a Californian hedge-fund billionaire who is a big contributor to the Democratic Party, played key roles in promoting the opposition. Steyer helped fund groups fighting the pipeline and confronted Obama about it directly, while McKibben organized protests, including one outside the White House, where he and others were arrested. “This is like a Rube Goldberg machine producing global warming and other environmental catastrophes,” McKibben told The New Yorker about the pipeline. “If we’re going to do anything about global warming, it’s the poster child for the kind of stuff that’s going to have to stay in the ground.”*

In the past few years, a lot has changed in the North American energy market. Many electricity producers have switched from coal to cleaner shale gas, which is produced in the Dakotas, Texas, and other places, and CO2 emissions have fallen considerably. More recently, we’ve seen a big fall in oil prices, which, if it were to be sustained, could render it uneconomic to exploit some of the heavy oil contained in the Canadian tar sands. But winning the battle over the Keystone XL pipeline is still crucially important to environmental activists, if only as a show of force. If you go to the home page of the Sierra Club’s Web site, you will see an urgent appeal. “PRESIDENT OBAMA VETOED KEYSTONE XL,” it reads. “This is a good first step, but Big Oil-backed members of Congress won’t stop trying until President Obama rejects Keystone XL once and for all. Help us see this fight to the end.”

It’s not clear what Obama will ultimately decide. The White House still seems reluctant to engage in debate about the pipeline’s merits. When he vetoed the G.O.P. bill on Tuesday, Obama didn’t say that he’d decided in favor of the environmentalists. He simply sent a short written message to Congress, accusing it of seeking “to circumvent longstanding and proven processes for determining whether or not building and operating a cross-border pipeline serves the national interest.”At one point, Obama said that he would base his decision on the outcome of a State Department technical review of the pipeline’s environmental implications. When the study was released last January, though, it concluded that blocking the pipeline wouldn’t make much difference to overall carbon emissions: the Canadians would find other ways of transporting to refineries the bitumen-heavy crude extracted from the Alberta tar sands. This finding jibed with the assessment of most, but not all, independent-energy experts.

That left the White House in a bind. Environmentalists are a vocal and energetic part of the Democratic coalition. To justify further stalling, the President has, since last year, been pointing to ongoing court cases in Nebraska. Last month, one of those cases was resolved in favor of allowing construction to proceed. The White House now says it is awaiting a final recommendation from the State Department, which, in turn, says it doesn’t have a timetable for coming up with one.

The technocrat in Obama might be tempted to approve the pipeline and emphasize the other environmental decisions he has made, such as tightening fuel-emissions standards for motor vehicles and ordering coal-fired power stations to reduce their emissions. He could probably come up with studies showing that the impact of these policies on carbon emissions would dwarf the impact of the pipeline. But the politician in Obama knows that there would still be a big stink.

President Barack Obama’s veto Tuesday of Congress’ bill to authorize construction of the Keystone XL pipeline is being portrayed as a simple battle between liberals and conservatives, progress and obstructionism, jobs and environmentalism.

Fact is, though, that about the only thing simple in this confrontation is the simplistic construct created by a GOP-controlled Congress that can’t even muster the votes to override the president’s veto.

According to The Associated Press story earlier this week, Republicans haven’t shown they can amass the two-thirds majority.

"(Obama) is looking at this as showing he still can be king of the hill, because we don't have the votes to override," said Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma.

Indeed, this is a battle not so much about the environment or economic development as much as it is about political control.

The bill the president rejected was basically a power grab by Congress to snatch away from the State Department the duty of issuing a permit to TransCanada to build the $8 billion pipeline from the Canadian border to Nebraska. That responsibility lies with the Obama administration, but lawmakers wanted to flex their muscles and gain political points with voters with promises of jobs.

But those promises are just enticements of instant gratification. And the veto doesn’t mean the project is dead. The State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency are still reviewing and may still eventually approve it.

Certainly, there are all kinds of arguments in opposition to the pipeline, and they all aren’t environmental. Just ask property owners in Nebraska who are fighting the spectre of eminent domain to take lands for the pipe route. And in South Dakota, TransCanada is still waiting on that state’s Public Utilities Commission approval.

So, it’s not just the Obama administration that seems to be standing in the way of pipe getting laid.

We’d do well to remember this as we watch the process to decide whether and when Canadian company Veresen ever gets its Jordan Cove Energy Project off the ground. No matter which side of the debate you’re on, you no doubt feel frustrated because power isn’t being wielded the way you want, and obstacles keep complicating what should be a slam dunk.But when it comes to politics and energy, nothing is ever a slam dunk.
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...................................................................................................................................................................COMMENTS:* Statements from Giuliani are the very reason why the Republicans will never win a national election. They win state elections because of gerrymanding, but never the presidency. Walker is a panderer and his base loves it.* Here's a solution that will give Republicans the chance to demonstrate effectively how they will show President Obama just what they think of his illegal orders... If President Obama were to issue an Executive Order that expressly forbade any American citizen to ever place a loaded gun in their mouth and pull the trigger, by the next day there would not be a Republican to be found. Next!* I don't recall in my long life reading or hearing so much absurd comments about any President as the GOP put forth about President Obama. This opinion writer surely has his observations right on target. If the GOP types are so sure President Obama does not love the USA, why would he risk his presidency on trying to get health care insurance for those who couldn't get it before. He didn't have to do that. It shows a definite caring about our citizens. The GOP truly should be ashamed of people like Giuliani and Jindal with their ridiculous self-serving comments.
...................................................................................................................................................................Deranged by Obama, Republicans are spouting nonsense
By Eugene Robinson, February 23, 2015

Republicans had better divert some of their campaign cash toward finding a cure for Obama Derangement Syndrome. If they don’t, their nemesis will beat them in a third consecutive presidential contest — without, of course, actually being on the ballot.

GOP power brokers and potential candidates surely realize that President Obama is ineligible to run in 2016. Yet they seem unable to get over the fact that he won in 2008 and 2012. It’s as if they are more interested in vainly trying to rewrite history than attempting to lay out a vision for the future.

Obama Derangement Syndrome is characterized by feverish delirium. The Republican Party suffered an episode last week when former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani began speaking in tongues about Obama’s patriotism.

“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani said. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up, through love of this country.”

This is obviously a nonsensical thing to say about a man who was elected president twice and has served as commander in chief for more than six years. Pressed to explain himself, Giuliani ranted and raved for several days about Obama’s upbringing, made demonstrably false claims about the president’s supposed denial of American exceptionalism, insisted that “I said exactly what I wanted to say” — and then finally issued a non-retraction retraction in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

“My blunt language suggesting that the president doesn’t love America notwithstanding, I didn’t intend to question President Obama’s motives or the content of his heart,” Giuliani wrote. But of course he did intend to question Obama’s motives, heart, patriotism and legitimacy, albeit in a self-destructive, laughingstock kind of way.

Giuliani can perhaps be dismissed; his future in presidential politics is as bleak as his past, which consists of one spectacularly unsuccessful run for the GOP nomination. But if he was speaking as the party’s id, surely Republicans who consider themselves in the mix for 2016 would play the role of superego and tamp down such baser instincts. Right?

Wrong. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — a guest at the dinner where Giuliani had his eruption — refused to repudiate the offending remarks. “The mayor can speak for himself,” he said. “I’m not going to comment on whether, what the president thinks or not. .?.?. I’ll tell you I love America, and I think there are plenty of people, Democrat, Republican, independent and everyone in between, who love this country.”

Walker, who is on a roll lately in terms of self-embarrassment, wasn’t finished. Asked if he believes Obama is a Christian, Walker responded, “I don’t know.” A spokeswoman later clarified that what the governor meant to say was yes, of course he knows the president is a Christian; Walker declined to respond because it was a “gotcha” question. Which it wouldn’t have been, if Walker had given that answer in the first place.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, another 2016 hopeful, volunteered that “the gist” of what Giuliani said “is true.” Later, Jindal went further and declared: “I hate to say this, but we have a president right now who is not qualified to be our commander in chief.”

It’s true that Generalissimo Jindal is a long shot to win the nomination. But most other potential GOP candidates were either silent or didn’t give a direct answer. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and former Florida governor Jeb Bush said it was a mistake to question Obama’s motives. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee offered no opinion. Former Texas governor Rick Perry said, “I think the president, in his mind, loves this country.”

Only Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) was bold enough to say there is “no doubt” that the president of the United States does, in fact, love the United States. Good for him.

Giuliani’s burst of nonsense is important because it speaks to the Republican Party’s mind-set. If the party is going to contend for the White House, it first has to fully acknowledge and accept that it lost the last two presidential elections. The nation voted twice for Obama and his policies. Deal with it.

Republicans need to abandon the fantasy that there’s some sort of grand deception underlying the Obama presidency. They’re only deceiving themselves.
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...................................................................................................................................................................Painting Obama as the 'other' an ugly GOP tactic
By Rekha Basu, February 25, 2015

Don’t do it. Do not go down that road again.

Criticize the president for his policies, his phraseology, his war strategies and terrorism-fighting approach. I’d even join you on some of it. But don’t revive that ugly nonsense about Barack Obama not loving America, not being American, or being a closet Muslim who’s out to undermine the government from within.

That nasty, fear-stoking strategy used by political opponents during Obama’s first presidential campaign gets revved up again with each election cycle. But it has moved alarmingly from the realm of anonymous smear campaigns circulated by emails and bogus websites, to the mouths of Republican standard-bearers.

Business tycoon Donald Trump does it by questioning Obama’s birth certificate. Now former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani questions Obama’s love for his country.

“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” Politico quoted Giuliani as saying at a private dinner for fellow Republican, Gov. Scott Walker, who seems to be gearing up for a White House run. “He doesn’t love you,” Giuliani continued. “And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up, and I was brought up through love of this country.”

Giuliani dodged a reporter’s question on whether that line of attack was planned beforehand, with Walker’s approval. Walker has not repudiated it, noting only that he, himself, loves America. Shame on him. And shame on Giuliani, who once forged a delicate balance as a moderate leading a liberal city and earned widespread approval for his firm, reassuring leadership in the aftermath of 9/11.

Shame also on Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who as an Indian-American should know better than to play into ethnic divisiveness.

“If you are looking for someone to condemn the mayor, look elsewhere,” Jindal, also a prospective presidential candidate, told Time magazine.

Giuliani’s comments, and their tacit acceptance by likely presidential candidates, reflect two disturbing trends. One is the growing willingness to play the race card in ways politicians might once have thought better of. Even as America is on its way to becoming a predominantly brown-skinned nation, race-baiting and foreigner-bashing by politicians are growing.

One key way is through the ongoing inference that Obama’s not one of us because he’s black, has a mixed ethnic background and a Muslim middle name. Iowa’s 4th District Congressman, Steve King, has made a point of doing it, including by accusing Obama of having a default mechanism that “favors the black person” – and it never cost him an election.

George Allen, the former Virginia governor and U.S. senator, lost re-election after calling an Indian-American working for Allen’s Democrat opponent, Jim Webb, “macaca.” That’s a racial reference, to a monkey. But Allen rebounded in 2012 to win the Republican primary for his old Senate seat.

As disturbing as the racial subtexts is the revival of another tactic first seen by most of us during the Vietnam War. That is to question the patriotism of anyone who suggests that, as the world’s most powerful nation, we try diplomacy and respect for other nations and religions. What provoked Giuliani was that Obama, in a speech about preventing attacks from groups like al-Qaida and Islamic State, took pains not to use the terms “Islamic terrorism” or “Islamic extremism.”

Maybe that seemed clumsy or pandering. Maybe the president is being overly cautious with language in his effort not to antagonize most Muslims, but have them work with us to isolate the extremists. But it was hardly worthy of attacks like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), another likely presidential candidate, calling Obama “an apologist for radical Islamic terrorists.” Let’s not forget that as president, George W. Bush took pains to stress we were not at war with Islam, and his patriotism was never questioned for it.

Giuliani told CNN: “President Obama was brought up in an atmosphere in which he was taught to be a critic of America. That is a distinction with prior American presidents.” As one who grew up skeptical of whoever was in power, whether in America or India, and has frequently been accused of not loving this or that country for not agreeing with everything done in its name, I’m a bit touchy on this point: Democracy demands constructive engagement, not uncritical acquiescence.

At the start of G.W. Bush’s Iraq and Afghanistan wars, opponents got smeared as unpatriotic. Yet even though those wars and drone strikes are now Obama’s, and draw criticism from people like me, the right still declares Obama unpatriotic.

Now it’s for being careful how he talks about Islam. Their insistence on stigmatizing him as “other” is an ugly tactic that will leave scars on the national psyche that could take a long time to heal. If candidates won’t renounce that, if they can’t win on real issues, they shouldn’t run.
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...................................................................................................................................................................COMMENTS:* Religion melts your mind. * No, but worshiping a 'deity' so vicious that if it were human it would be locked up as criminally insane certainly does.* Why is it they feel it's ok to change the first amendment, but they are probably the same crowd who believe the 2nd is sacred!* I'm a little unclear here. These people favor establishing Christianity as the state religion DESPITE that is clear proscribed in the First Amendment or are they just not aware that the First Amendment does not permit this? Frankly I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it were the latter, as so much fact-free non-information (i.e., lies) get spread across the nation by Tealibangelists who want to impose their own version of Sharia law.
...................................................................................................................................................................Majority Of Republican Primary Voters Want To Violate The First Amendment
By Ian Millhiser, February 25, 2015

Only 30 percent of Republican voters believe that Congress should not make a law respecting an establishment of religion, according to the poll.

The same poll also finds that 74 percent of GOP primary voters have a favorable opinion of former President George W. Bush. Two-thirds (66%) do not believe in global warming, and a plurality (49%) do not believe in evolution.
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1. According to the AP, Senate Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have agreed on a plan that would keep the Department of Homeland Security from shutting down Friday due to a lack of funding.

2. The Senate plan involves taking up the DHS-funding bill passed by the House in January, but striking out the provisions that would require President Obama to stop his executive actions extending protection from deportation to millions of unauthorized immigrants — which had kept Senate Democrats from supporting the bill.

3. Instead, the Senate will also vote on a separate bill that would block the president's executive actions, without tying it to DHS funding. (That bill probably wouldn't get past a Democratic filibuster, and would definitely be vetoed.)

4. Speaker of the House John Boehner hasn't committed to bringing up a "clean" DHS funding bill that doesn't include the immigration provisions for a vote. In order to keep DHS from shutting down Friday, the House would have to take up — and vote on — that bill.

What happens next?

It's all up to the House of Representatives. More specifically, it's all up to Speaker Boehner: as long as he decides to bring the bill up for a vote and get enough Republicans to support it, it's guaranteed to pass.

As I wrote Monday, Boehner has been in this position many times before. "And every time, sooner or later, the stalemate gets resolved in the same way: (he) caves and introduces a bill that gets the support of Democrats and moderate or party-loyalist Republicans to pass the House."

Here's the rundown of how this has played out over the last few years:

* Summer 2011: The debt ceiling fight.* This isn't exactly the same as the others: instead of Boehner initially refusing to compromise and then giving in, he worked out a compromise with President Obama that would raise the debt ceiling in exchange for negotiated tax hikes and spending cuts, then was talked out of that compromise by then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. As a result, Congress ended up raising the debt ceiling by setting up the sequester (a set of mandatory spending cuts). But Eric Cantor isn't around anymore, and even if he were, intra-leadership conservative challenges to Boehner's authority weren't as strong after 2011. In recent months, in fact, Republican leadership has made it clear that their job is to enforce party loyalty from the top down.

* January 2013: The fiscal cliff. At the end of December 2012, a whole stack of temporary policies (including the Bush tax cuts) were set to expire at the same time — which economists predicted would combine to shock the US into a recession. But as the expiration date loomed, Republicans refused to consider any plan that would continue any of these policies while increasing marginal tax rates by even a cent. Congress barely went over the fiscal cliff, but managed to stop itself on the way down. Then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Vice President Joe Biden worked out a deal (including tax increases) that the Senate passed on New Year's morning 2013. Boehner, despite previous promises not to bring up any bill that violated the "Hastert rule" and didn't have the support of a majority of Republicans, brought the Senate deal up for a vote later that day, where it passed with the support of Democrats and a minority of Republicans.

* January 2013: Hurricane Sandy relief. Right after the fiscal cliff showdown, Boehner was forced to break the Hastert Rule again — this time for a bill that would provide disaster-recovery funds to northeastern states hit by November 2012's Hurricane Sandy. At the end of the 110th Congress on January 1st (right after the fiscal-cliff deal), Boehner refused to bring up a Senate-passed relief bill because conservatives balked at more spending. But he was hammered by northeastern Republicans, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and within the week he'd agreed to bring up a bill in the new Congress. The series of caves on the Hastert rule in the first months of 2013 (at the end of November, he would break it again to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act) are what solidified Boehner's reputation in DC.

* October 2013: Government shutdown. This is the worst-case scenario: the deadline for Congressional action came and went, and the federal government shut down for 16 days, before Speaker Boehner relented and allowed a bill to come to the floor that continued to fund the government without making changes to the Affordable Care Act and delaying its implementation for a year. But relent he did. The bill ultimately got about a third of House Republicans to join House Democrats in supporting it, practically sailing through the House.

* January 2014: Another debt-ceiling increase. This one was relatively straightforward and drama-free. Republicans initially demanded that certain military pensions be restored as a condition of them raising the debt ceiling; Boehner and House leadership agreed to a "clean" raise instead.
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